petMD Blogs

The Daily Vet is a blog featuring veterinarians from all walks of life. Every week they will tackle entertaining, interesting, and sometimes difficult topics in the world of animal medicine – all in the hopes that their unique insights and personal experiences will help you to understand your pets.

Microchips rock! I love them. There’s no feeling quite as great as finding a microchip in a stray dog and getting him back home to his grateful family.

But the corollary is also true: There’s nothing as frustrating as finding a stray dog with no microchip. And nothing is more depressing than finding one with a microchip...that’s not registered to anyone. What a waste of a great opportunity!

The problem with microchips is that implanting one is NOT enough. Though shelters, veterinarians, breeders and even pet shops implant them in as many pets as they possibly can, the sad reality is that as many as 25-50% go unregistered.

That’s either because the new owners aren’t informed of the need for registration, because they don’t want to fork over $15 to $25 a year for registration, or because they put it off and forget about it.

This last possibility seems like it reigns supreme in my practice. Though every pet that goes out the door with a brand new microchip gets to hear me deliver my speal to his owners, owners don’t always heed my warning: NO registration means NO microchip!

When the next year rolls around, about a third of these owners haven’t yet registered the chips. And it only takes one call. So what’s YOUR excuse??

Comments 4

Interesting... My cat is an indoor cat, but we had it done just in case he ever got out & got away. I gave the id number on the paperwork to my vet. They said they'd put themselves on as the chip as 'the vet of record', or something like this. Would that be enough for me to get my kitty back?

Isn't this an opportunity to help the client follow-through? Why not add the 5 minutes it takes to register the chip on to the end of the appointment? Or work with the chip tracking companies to provide a discounted rate for on-the-spot registrations? After all, if the folks don't register, they don't get their annual fee. Perhaps a rev share of that first year for the DVM and security for the client?

Min: Your veterinarian should keep paperwork on file for every microchipped pet. Should your pet be lost your veterinarian should have the info on file. But these are usually paper records. Anything can go wrong. You may switch vets, your numbers may change. Fire may devastate the practice. Who knows? It's always safest to have the pet registered to YOU. If you're not sure how this would work or if you're "safe enough," consider calling the microchip company with your pet's number on hand. See if the information is correct and up to date.